SUBJECT: Evergreen Apps Challenge winners announced

Evergreen Apps Challenge winners announced
Build an app. Make a difference

Seattle - The State of Washington, King County, and City of Seattle announced the winners last night for the "Evergreen Apps Challenge," from 20 finalists. These innovative mobile and web applications will connect residents to services and help people create useful experiences out of the data that government creates on a day to day basis.

Winners in the competition were selected by a panel of industry experts and congratulated on Oct. 1 by King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, along with a gathering of industry leaders at Seattle City Hall.

"People in our region will soon benefit from these apps, and we can be proud of the talented local developers who are building reputations as innovators at the same time they are building the tools," said Constantine.

"Evergreen Apps Challenge" was announced in April 2012 during the first Startup Weekend - Government. Developers had until Sept. 6 to develop and submit their applications, which are now publicly available at EvergreenApps.org. Prize of over $75,000 were awarded to the winners, with the inclusion of two People's Choice awards which were chosen by attendees by popular vote at the event on Oct. 1.

"We are pleased to see so many high-quality apps developed as a result of this contest", said Will Saunders, policy and program director for the State Broadband Office. "We hope these developers will attract investors and build business opportunities in our apps economy."

Entries were reviewed by a panel of expert judges, including Francis Benjamin, of Washington State University; Adam Gentz, of BizXchange; Mónica Guzmán, of Geekwire; Susannah Malarkey, Executive Director of the Technology Alliance; Manny Medina, CEO of GroupTalent; Jason Preston, co-founder of Dent the Future; and Bill Schrier, Deputy Director of the Center for Digital Government.

The apps were assessed against a range of criteria including innovation, user experience and design, potential impact on Washington State, King County, and/or Seattle residents, visitors and businesses. They also had to be available for public use for the next year.

The Good Government prize was awarded to Seattle Rainwatch, a real-time web-based weather system that provides short-term forecasts, or nowcasts and rain accumulation totals in Seattle. The Best City App went to Trash Backwards, a mobile app encouraging reuse and upcycle solutions to combat the problem of excess stuff in our society. The Best County App went to Food Inspector, which displays the King County food inspection results in an easy to understand manner with a goal of improving the visibility of the food inspection results. Best State App prize went to Living Voters Guide, a non-partisan resource that fosters civil discussion and nuanced deliberation and provides titles and descriptions of current ballot measures from the Washington's Secretary of State and county elections bureaus. The Best Multijurisdictional prize was awarded to Which Bus, which combines both trip planning and real-time bus information in just a few easy steps, all within one app. People's Choice awards went to Which Bus, and Alike. Honorable Mention went to Trash Backwards, a two-time winner. Second-place overall went to Which Bus, a three-time winner, and the grand prize was awarded to Living Voters Guide.

"It was exciting to see so many up and coming software developers honored at City Hall yesterday," said Seattle's McGinn. "I'm looking forward to using the award winning apps and to future collaboration between government and our region's vast pool of tech talent."

The Washington State Broadband Office is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is charged with coordination, programming, and outreach on broadband issues including opportunities for funding. As part of this effort, WSBO launched the state's first interactive broadband map showing service availability in our state by provider, technology and advertised speeds. The map is available on the WSBO website.